


Hundreds Of, But Only One

by tielan



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 20:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda visits Spock while he's a student at the Academy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hundreds Of, But Only One

Earth is unlike Vulcan, although he has grown accustomed to its ways as his mother has grown accustomed to Vulcan ways.

He would ask her about the difference - the dissonance between what is known and what is experienced, but it seems an imposition even if she does not consider it so.

She tucks her arm in his as they cross the grassy quandrangle, headed for the main hall. The touch is intimate, familiar, and not unwelcome. Yet his fellow cadets stare as they pass - Spock is not known for his tactility. It is logical for them to be surprised; yet Spock finds himself surprised at the emotion that burgeons within him at their astonishment - an amusement so strong he might consider it smug were he wholly human.

"You don't need me to tell you you're doing well, Spock. Your instructors are all very impressed with you."

"Their admiration has little to do with success in my classes," he says. In truth, his classes are simple when compared with the lessons he undertook on Vulcan - mere tasks of memory, extrapolation, translation, conclusion. "My fellow students tend to be careless in their calculations."

"And you are not," she says, drawing the logical conclusion as she smiles up at him. He feels the unfurling warmth of her regard beneath his breastbone, giving way to a chill as she asks, "So, introduce me to your friends."

"I have not had spare time in which to cultivate others of common interest," he begins, but she interrupts him.

"Oh, Spock, I meant _friends_, not just people you talk with."

On Vulcan, the commonalities that bound the other children together excluded him - as he learned to expect given the nature of social and interpersonal interactions between individuals, whether Vulcan or human. On Earth, the commonalities that bind the other cadets together exclude him as well, although Spock recognises that it is an unconscious differentiation, not a conscious one.

His mother senses his silence means he has not made friends as she defines them, and sighs and pats his hand. "Maybe the next time I visit?"

Spock does not answer. The burn of her skin speaks to him with bright words - gold and scarlet against the warmth of her personality, a solid darkness, comforting in its depths and certainty. In her touch, he feels her pride in him, her affection, and, too, her fear for him.

Fear seems illogical at this time - what is there that should cause her to fear for him, here at the Federation Academy?

"I will attempt to cultivate friendships," he says at last. "So you may be introduced to them the next time you visit."

His dryness is not entirely unintentional; provoked, her laugh rolls out, sweet as a well-sung song, as a well-argued point in his classes. "I look forward to it, Spock."

She is less restrained here on Earth than he remembers her on Vulcan, and he finds he prefers her this way.

 

_Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,  
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,  
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,  
But only one mother the wide world over._  
~George Cooper~

\- **fin** -


End file.
